2002 in Video Gaming - Events

Events

• Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Will Wright of Maxis to the AIAS Hall of Fame
• BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) holds 5th annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards for multimedia technologies; 10 of 21 awards go to video games; awards Ian Livingstone the BAFTA Interactive Special Award
• Big Fish Games is founded with Paul Thelen as the only employee.
• Eidos Interactive selects Dutch model Jill De Jong as the new digitized Lara Croft character
• Gama Network hosts the 4th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF)
• Game Developers Conference hosts the 2nd annual Game Developers Choice Awards
• SEGA establishes the Sega Mobile division to develop, produce, and distribute video games for mobile phones and PDAs; establishes the Sega.com Business Solutions division to service video game developers and publishers
• Rockstar Games embroiled in controversy for its Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City video games
• March 22, 2002 – The Sims overtakes Myst as all-time best-selling computer game, having sold 6.3 million units
• April 24, 2002 – G4 Media, LLC (subsidiary of Comcast Corporation) launches the G4 cable television video game network channel
• July 2002 – IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 3rd annual Executive Summit.
• July 9-11, 2002 – 8th annual E³ (Electronic Entertainment Expo); the 5th annual Game Critics Awards for the Best of E³
• December 5, 2002 – Ryan C. Gordon of the former Loki Software releases his first free-lance game port beta, Serious Sam: The First Encounter for Linux. He would later become well known to Linux and Mac gamers for his ports, such as Unreal Tournament 2004 and even the Google Earth application.